


feel like you’re treading water, but the riptide’s getting stronger

by SegaBarrett



Series: AU Future Bryce [1]
Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parenting, F/M, Gen, Is Bryce redeemed? Who knows?, Kids, Marriage for Citizenship, Mentions of sex trafficking, Pregnancy, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Or, the Bryce saga.
Relationships: Amorowat "Ani" Achola/Bryce Walker, Chloe Rice/Bryce Walker
Series: AU Future Bryce [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876009
Kudos: 3





	feel like you’re treading water, but the riptide’s getting stronger

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own 13RW and make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Title is from "30/90" from Tick Tick Boom.
> 
> TW: Allusions to sex slavery/trafficking. Also implied vomiting. And allusions to events of S1/2. And cancer. I think I got everything.

Bryce marries Chloe, because of course he does. 

That’s what’s expected for a man dedicated to turning over a new leaf – a man who will stand by his pregnant girlfriend and turn her into a very wealthy woman.

Bryce’s father buys them a house, because that’s what you do when your son – who had a bit of trouble, nothing big, these boys these days – is turning over a new leaf and getting married to a beautiful blonde. 

And it’s very easy to look like you’re turning over a new leaf when you’re dressed to the nines in a tuxedo, albeit with your mother sitting in the front row unable to look at you as she downs her seventh vodka martini of the night.

She slips Chloe a card with the name of the closest women’s clinic with “it’s not too late” written on the back.

Bryce finds it.

But not until later.

***

Chloe is quiet all the way to the hospital. Bryce tries to bring her around with light, airy conversation, because it’s not the kind of place where you talk about the real things. (There’s time for that later, or better yet, never at all.) 

He doesn’t stay in the delivery room with her but instead walks outside, strutting instead of pacing. Nothing will go wrong because nothing will go wrong. Statistically, most of Bryce’s life has gone perfectly according to plan.

Chloe’s mom is in there with her, anyway. And that’s her sort of thing. 

***

“Wake up.”

Bryce’s head snaps up to where he had fallen asleep in the chair. He tips his head up to see his mother staring down at him.

“Chloe’s gone.”

“Gone?” Bryce inquires. “Like, she died?”

That only happens in those books he had been supposed to read for school. Looking back, he thinks it was Justin who read those for him.

“Not dead, you idiot,” his mother snaps at him. “Gone. Her and her mother packed up and left. No forwarding address.”

“With the baby?”

His mother lets out a snarl.

“No. She left the kid behind.”

Bryce looks around.

“Can I see her?”

A groan of exasperation.

“I guess you’d better. You’ll be seeing her for eighteen years.”

***

He’s struck by just how small the baby is, so impossibly small. Tiny fingers and tiny toes, and the pinkest little head.

He remembers watching Alice in Wonderland as a child and the way Alice would grow bigger and smaller, to disappear into doorways and tower over cities. 

“Her name is Alice,” he tells the nurse.

***

“Alice Walker? Was ‘Celie’ also in the running? Or ‘Nettie’?”

Bryce brushes the hair out of his eyes and stares over at Ms. Achola (“Really, just call me Ani”). 

“What?” he asks. 

“Never mind,” Ani replies, chuckling. “I don’t mean to overstep, but I think maybe Alice is a little… lonely. She said that you’re not home a lot?”

“Yeah, I’ve been… uh… busy. With work and things.” He hopes that he’s rubbing the red out of his eyes, but he might just be making them more red.

“I understand. Just… keep it in mind, Mr. Walker. These early years are critical. She’s a bright kid, though. I think she’ll do well. She’s already reading at fourth grade level.”

“Please. Call me Bryce. Oh… and are you doing anything after this? I was going to make a reservation in town. We could talk about Alice’s future.”

***

Bryce marries Amorowat “Ani” Achola, because of course he does.

It’s mostly her family at the reception. Bryce hasn’t talked to his parents since Alice was three.

Ani’s mother is a nurse, mostly in-home, mostly chemotherapy, and her father is a diplomat who managed to break away from time in Nairobi, or maybe it was the Swiss Alps, to turn the wedding into a well-oiled machine.

Mr. Achola does not like Bryce.

He takes him aside during the reception and reminds him of exactly what “diplomatic immunity” covers, up to and including murder.

***

It starts out as a joke.

“We should name her Briani,” Ani tells him, “Bryce and Ani. It’s like… It would be our ship name.”

“Ship name? Like the Titanic?” Bryce inquires.

“Sometimes you are dumb as a rock, Bryce. I’m glad that you’re so very cute.” 

Ani bops him on the head and follows it up with a little kiss on the cheek.

Briani Walker is born when Alice is six, and they always call her “Bebe”. 

***

When Alice is eight and Bebe one, Ani is pregnant again.

“If I ask you for something, will you agree and not ask any questions about it?” Bryce asks, seized with a fervor that Ani doesn’t understand.

And so Ani agrees, because that’s the best thing to do when Bryce is like this, when he acts as if wind instead of ground is below his feet, when he acts as if shadows are chasing him in the darkness.

When he hears hoofbeats in the distance.

“If the baby is a girl, she needs to be named Hannah.”

“Why Hannah? Is that someone in your family?”

“I asked you not to ask questions, Ani. Please. Just name her Hannah.” When she presses just that little bit further, he says, “I think it will protect us.”

***

Hannah Marie Walker is born on a fresh, bright Tuesday morning.

Less than a year later, Ani dies of cervical cancer.

***

“Well, you’re racking up quite the little brood, aren’t you Bryce?” his mother tells him on the phone. “Isn’t cervical cancer caused by that HPV virus?” She takes a pause and Bryce pictures her taking the drag on her cigarette. “Seems we should have gotten you the shot at 11 like they recommend. Of course, that’s not all we should have done.” 

***

Bryce Walker goes through housekeepers like some people go through changes of clothing. 

They each stay on long enough to warn the next woman. 

“You won’t just be cleaning the man’s house, you’ll be raising his daughters and listening to him cry, cry, cry about nothing and everything. You’d think he would trade in all his money for a shack with the way he goes on. How he’s cursed to be wealthy. Please give me a break.” Then they’ll each pause and add, “Stay on until Christmas, though. That bonus is nothing to sneeze at.”

Bryce leaves for days at a time. He always did, but Alice remembers how he didn’t do it as much when Ani was around.

By the time she turns eleven, she has located each of his favorite haunts and has made herself a nuisance at each and every one, with an overcoat pulled over her private school uniform and her hair long instead of in a ponytail to help her find her way past the bouncer.

Sometimes she reminds him that he’s missing Bebe’s dance recital or that he forgot to bring her to dance class, but they both know that Alice walks her there by now and it’s Alice who sits in the audience and applauds. 

Alice who stands with her arms open when Hannah takes her very first steps.

Alice who always brings Bryce home and doesn’t ask about Chloe or Ani or why sometimes his own youngest daughter’s name makes his eyes flood with the fear of a wounded deer waiting to be put out of its misery.

***

Bryce’s housekeeping agency tires of him and his father refers him to a new one.

The pricing is higher and the man on the phone, who has a Slavic accent and does not offer Bryce his name, asks whether he prefers blondes or brunettes.

“That’s an odd question,” Bryce tells him. “My thirtieth birthday is tomorrow, so whoever can start then. Someone who’s a quick learner, though. A lot of people will be here.”

***

The woman arrives halfway through the festivities, as Bryce is wondering if he even knows most of these people – well, there’s Justin in the corner, that’s a surprise - and she’s looking down at the ground as if she truly believes stepping on a crack will break her mother’s back.

“You’re late,” Bryce tells her quickly, gesturing to the kitchen before he returns to the dining room and watches the flames flicker on his cake.

“Way to go, Bryce,” somebody says, “Keep livin’ it up for thirty more years after this. Never change!”

Bryce leans in and blows out the candles to the sound of raucous cheering.

Somewhere, a glass breaks.

The housekeeper will get it.

***

He’s stumbling, drunk, into the kitchen after everyone has left, when he crashes into the new housekeeping girl.

He has a chance to finally see what she looks like – must be 19, 20 maybe, dark hair and she’s still looking down.

At least until she looks up, steps back and lets out a terrified yelp, eyes wide, body shuddering.

“Didn’t see you there,” Bryce slurs, and puts his hand on the counter.

She takes a step towards him, slowly, and it’s in her look of resignation that clarity cuts through his alcohol-induced haze.

He turns and heads for the nearest trashcan.

***

It’s Alice who talks to her. At twelve, she already has a knack for languages.

“Her name is Anastacia,” she says. 

“Like the movie,” Bryce supplies, and Alice rolls her eyes.

“Yes, Dad. Like the movie. They have her passport and she has to, uh, do stuff. For them. She didn’t think she was coming here to clean the house.” She swallows. “We have to help her, right? Right? How do we help her?”

Bryce leans back in the couch, rubbing his temples.

“You have to have an idea, Dad,” she continues. 

“I do,” he admits. 

***

The perk of having a nice little guesthouse in the back of one’s property is that you can give it to someone to live in whom you never plan to see again.

“But what if you meet someone and fall in love with them and wanna marry them?” Bebe asks, tossing a petal to the floor.

“I’ve been married twice before. That’s enough. Trust me, it’s more than I deserve.”

“What’s that mean?” Bebe asks.

And on the eve of Bryce Walker’s third wedding, he sits at the edge of the stairs and lets his daughters -12, 6, and 4 - look down at him.

“There might come a day when you meet somebody… Somebody who seems good, but is rotten underneath. You can’t always see it – you usually can’t - and it isn’t your fault if you don’t. You might feel like you’re crazy if you’re the only one who does.”

“Like a monster?” little Hannah pipes up. “A monster nobody else sees?”

“Yeah. Like that. And sometimes that monster grows up into… maybe a bigger monster, or maybe something not quite. And maybe sometimes a monster does a good thing here and there but might still be rotten underneath.”

“Why are you telling us this, Dad?” Alice inquires.

“Because,” Bryce says, and he brushes his thumb against his eye. “Because you’ll probably be meeting them soon, Alice. And then you, Bebe. And… Hannah. Hannah.” He reaches out and pulls his youngest to his chest and hugs her, tight, biting his lip. “Do you know why I named you that?”

“How come?” she asks.

“Because there are things that it’s important not to forget. You’re named after somebody who should be here. Instead of me. But isn’t, because of something I did. Because… of a lot of things I did.”

“What did you do?” Alice asks and her face, Chloe’s face, looks to him like she can already guess.

“Something that I hope you will never understand.” He stands up and brushes his hair down. “Everyone ready to see me get fake-married?”

“Yeah!” Hannah exclaims, the earlier, confusing conversation already forgotten. “Let’s do it! I’m the flower girl.”

And Alice takes Bebe’s hand and leads her along.


End file.
